You Cannot Stop True Love
by Zamael
Summary: Weddings are always something to be celebrated at the Valley of Peace, in particular when they are between what everybody knows as True Love. But this time there are two that are unhappy...
1. Chapter 1

This was not a normal morning at the Valley of Peace. Were it one of those, it would begin with the ringing of the morning bell, upon which the good residents of the Valley would awaken and embark on another day full of labor, routine and responsibility, with perhaps a little bit of fun and games later if they had the time.

This being not a normal morning, nobody woke up at the ringing of the bell - largely because absolutely everybody was already well awake.

The crowd had gathered to the center of the village, where there were music, paper dragons, noodles, and of course, fireworks: absolutely everyone at the Valley had come, for they were all invited to take part in a wedding, and a very special sort of too, the kind that did not often take place indeed. This was a wedding of true love, and so the people were cheerful and expectant.

It was the morning of late spring, and what a beautiful morning it was too: there was not a single cloud on the sky, the sun shone warmly and brightly, and the landscape was green and lush. It would be said in the future that even the heaven itself was thus giving its blessings to the happy couple!

The cavalcade of people slowly shaped themselves into something resembling a parade, dancing their way down the street before stopping by at a local noodle shop, to pick up two extra people into the bunch, one of which being the first half of the two most important participants of the day, the two around which all this was revolving. From there it continued on to the Jade Palace: not only because the ceremony itself would be kept at the courtyard, where there was enough room for everyone, but also because the other half of the couple lived up here.

And as the two finally joined hands and walked side by side to the altar, everybody beamed with happiness. Well, almost everybody: standing in front of the crowd, two people were less than happy - indeed, they were seething of barely contained rage and misery, masked beneath a face of wide smiles that did not reach their eyes.

But why? What kind of a person, let alone two, could be unhappy in this occasion? To find out, we must turn the clock back by three months...

* * *

><p>It was just another day at the restaurant. Time to make the noodles! And tofu.<p>

Business was always good at the Dragon Warrior. It had been good even at the days it was called Golden Harvest, and did not feature tofu at the menu, but as was the natural order of things, everything associated with someone famous tended to become crowded with people. And Golden Harvest had been the place where the Dragon Warrior used to work at, and its upstairs was where he used to sleep (and still did, on occasion), so people liked to come over a lot, not just for eating but also for birthdays or Make-a-Wish visits or just plain lounging around until they were forced to buy something.

And it helped that the food was great as well. Mr. Ping liked to think that it had something to do with the addition of tofu on the menu, the making of which had been his own secret dream ever since he was young.

Unfortunately, his son did not spend as much time in the shop, and with him, as he used to. Being the Dragon Warrior was a busy and dangerous profession, one where any day, any hour, he could be called somewhere to do battle with bandits and conquerors and the like, and whenever he did, his poor father was worried sick. But Po was living his own personal dream, and so Ping did not have much to say about it, and was happy for his son: but even with that said he nonetheless cherished every moment when they were together - even if the latest one brought him a nasty surprise indeed.

At first it went like any other father-son meeting: the goose would throw himself against the panda's massive stomach, make sure the other was all right and uninjured after yet another dangerous day of fighting the enemies of the Valley, then comment on how he had lost weight and whether he was all right.

"It's okay, dad, I'm really not hungr-..." His response was cut out by the thunderous grumble that, upon further investigation, turned out to be his stomach. His father smiled. "Weeell, I guess I could go for a bit of noodles. It was kind of a rough day."

Mr. Ping observed two helpings of noodles plus some tofu dessert. All were eaten with good appetite but not gorged down impatiently, which is what he used to do back when he was upset. It was clear that he had something in his mind, though it was nothing as serious as the whole thing about his true parentage a while back - a deep sigh of relief was had. That had been a difficult time for them both, and surely neither was willing to relive it again.

"So, what's on your mind?", he finally ventured.

"Huh?" The panda looked up at his adoptive father, stammering on: "What? No, nothing's wrong, not at all, why'd you think that? I just thought I'd give my dad a visit since I happened to be around, and..." He trailed off.

His reward was a sigh and a meaningful look given from the goose. "Po, I really know you much better than that. Better than noodles, even!"

"I know, but..."

"Now now, don't be shy. It couldn't possibly be worse than the time I found you with that magazine."

Po winced at the memory. No, this was definitely not as bad. This one, after all, did not involve sneaking upstairs with a magazine full of intricate and detailed paintings, after which his father had heard strange thumping noises and loud screams, then a heavy crash as one of the walls came down - with a stain on it that he was pretty sure was there still - and the nice pig lady next door, with a perfect vision to his room, had fainted. He had been told it was nothing to be ashamed of and perfectly natural, that every boy of his age did it ("Even you, dad?" "Yes, even me!"), but that maybe it was for the best if he gave that magazine back and forgot about it.

He had been eleven years old, and it was the first time ever that he had actually tried kung fu himself. That one thing master Mei Ling was doing in that painting just seemed so awesome he had to try it out! Now the memory of the incident helped him to shudder, put away his doubts and fears, and confess to his father something else he thought was pretty embarrassing:

"Well, dad...", he began, then cleared his throat and had a bit of a break, his feet shifting under him and his hands hiding behind his vast middle, "There's this girl..."

There was no time measurement unit small enough to accurately describe how quickly Mr. Ping's face turned from concern to that of relief, then pure joy. "A girl? Po, are you talking about... romance?"

"Well... something of the sort..." Po grinned, himself relieved to finally having managed to spit out his concern. There really had been no reason to hold it back in the first place, he thought. "Maybe? Possibly? I think I sort of... yeah, I like her."

"Oh, what a happy day!", his father exclaimed, hugging his son once again - to which he got a response. "You are finally thinking of retiring and settling down, then? Leave behind all that dangerous kung fuing, and take over the restaurant as was your destiny!"

"Er..."

"And children! Oh, of course there will be children." He smiled jubilantly, unaware of the blush spreading on Po's cheeks. "You can teach them all about cooking and noodlemaking - and tofu, and perhaps some other sort of a dish if they have special dreams like you and I did? - then reveal the secret ingredient of the soup and carry on the family line!" He fell silent, a single tear of happiness coming down his cheek, evoked by the deep emotions running at the scene in a way only a lone happy tear could. Then he finally spoke again:

"So, who is this lucky lady?"

"Uh..." Po hesitated, seeing how he really had not that much intention of doing all those things Ping had said, and once he heard the name of his crush, he would understand why that was... "...It's master Tigress. You know, from the Furious Five..."

There was no time measurement unit small enough to accurately describe how quickly Mr. Pings face turned from happiness to that of disappointment and pure terror. In fact, he was in the process of dice-cutting some vegetables, and nearly ended up with a finger less. "...Oh."

An awkward silence. "...Yeah. So... I guess I was just wondering, you know, was there ever someone you really liked? Someone you thought awesome enough to marry. Maybe give me a few pointers, since you've been-"

"Are you -sure- you like her?", Mr. Ping attempted vainly. "Maybe it is just a fleeting crush. Maybe you'll get over it in time."

Po sighed. "Dad, this isn't just some quick thing, it's about as real as it gets! Like, at first she used to hate my guts, and then we became friends, and then just earlier today, we fought off these bandits, you know, nothing big... and we do this thing I like to call Double Death Strike, where she grabs me and tosses me to a bunch of enemies..." He went silent for a second, his gleeful childlike explanation of matters becoming slower and rather peaceful, longing. "When she took my hands, time seemed to slow down. I looked to her eyes, and I felt this weird thing going through my stomach, kinda like if I'd eaten weird noodles except the good sort... I'm pretty sure it only lasted for like a second but it felt much longer than that, and then she let me go, and I was flying, like a bird..."

He fell silent again. "And... then what happened?", the goose finally inquired, after nearly a minute of nobody saying a thing, he merely concentrating on making noodles and serving customers.

"Yeah, then I fell down in the middle of some boars, and they managed to spear me a couple times because I wasn't really paying attention to them," he shrugged, then grinned, "but I totally paid them back like ten times over!"

"Oh, well, that's good, I guess..." Of course he knew that should Po take forth his infatuation, and have it reciprocated, then there would be no way he would settle down. The two would go on on their crazy kung fu fighting until they died or were simply too old to do anything at all. And should they ever manage to actually have children (or adopt), then those would continue on the line of their parents and become kung fu masters in their own right, which was all fine and good but then who would take over the noodle shop?

Po seemed oblivious to his father's plight, and was in fact still daydreaming. "This is it, dad, I'm really in LOV-OW!" There was a loud bang as he hit his head on the ceiling, having apparently tried to make one of those swan jumps - followed by a loud crash from upstairs three seconds later, as something heavy and fragile fell down to the floor. "Uh-oh. Uh. Sorry about that, dad, I'll go and... fix it..."

He did precisely that, leaving Mr. Ping all alone in his kitchen, only his thoughts serving as company, the very questionable sort at that. This was not as bad as the talk they had earlier about adoption, but it sure was close. It was like losing his son again. For the third time now: frustrating as all hell, if nothing else.

* * *

><p>"Inner peace..."<p>

One foot went right and behind, in a half-circle, making ripples in the water where she stood. One paw went up to the opposite direction, towards the water droplet that she could definitely sense was just about to break from the stone ceiling.

One water droplet went down three seconds after she "sensed" it, and five feet away from her paw, landing into the pool with a very resounding _drip._ One female tiger sighed, barely keeping frustration from bubbling up.

Tigress had been doing this for six hours now, ever since they had returned from defending the village, a band of bandits soundly beaten and with strange new thoughts in her head. Thoughts she wanted to deal with. She was not intending to give up, even after this time: she knew that nothing worth learning in kung fu had ever come easy on her, or any of her companions for that matter.

_Again._ Master Shifu's voice scolded her in her head, like she was once again just a cub in an orphanage, playing with dominos, so long ago. That was twenty years in the past and her master was nowhere near at the moment anyway, but she did as the voice told her. That had been true for most of her life.

"Inner peace...", she muttered under her breath, even as she readied the stance again, waiting for the next drop of water.

Besides herself and the drops of water, there were very few things down there that made any sound at all. The water in the pool had settled and did not splash, even if tiny ripples were occasionally sent out by the water drops from the ceiling. The waterfalls roared their thing somewhere in the distance. There were no beasts of the night outside, and the air was calm and there was barely any wind to speak of. Whatever little noise there was, Tigress shut it out from her mind even as she closed her eyes. All except the dropping of the water...

_drip._

There!

She reached her hand up, slowly and deliberately and with much substance, to catch the water drop before it went down. And she thought she got it this time, she really did... but instead she felt more disappointment as she heard it fall somewhere else, without feeling it land on her paw. She growled a little in frustration, prepared to try again, but then a thought hit her... her ears had picked up the sound from rather high up, definitely higher than ground level. And there was nothing else up there it could have landed on, except...

She opened her eyes, her hand coming down on her level. Indeed, there was something tiny and moist on top of her middle finger. She _had_ caught it. So why didn't she feel i-... oh.

Six hours down there she had spent, keeping her patience even as she kept failing and failing, but now Tigress lost her temper. There was a loud roar of anger and annoyance, and her hand punched to her left - from which she heard a loud crash as it impacted with the wall, though she still felt nothing. What she did feel, albeit very barely, was the massive head of the dragon statue as it broke down and crashed against her head: though big enough to crush any normal animal under it in a shapeless puddle, she was not normal, and it did not come even close of actually hurting her... but just like a single raindrop falling on someone could cause them to fly in screaming rage under right conditions (as she had observed happening to her friend Po some time ago), a heavy piece of a massive stone statue could have a similar effect on the one that felt nothing.

Ever since her childhood, such outbursts had been rare, nigh nonexistant, but even the best of them were not infallible, and so she ended up sceaming bloody murder and obscenities to the (thankfully) empty Dragon Grotto, and the wilderness around it, while running to the other side of the pool, flailing her front paws, before unsheathing her claws and burying them to the nearest wall, bringing them down and resulting in large, deep scratches all over. "Inner peace, inner peace, inner peace inner peace innerpeaceINNERPEACEARGHBGHG_HRGHAAAAAAAA...!_"

_"Ahem."_

The sound was barely audible, at least when compared to the furious clawing and screaming the other was making, but it was still enough to stop her in her tracks. Slowly, she turned around towards the entrance of the grotto, to witness the small elderly figure with a large staff that had entered. He looked at her disapprovingly. Shifu was always, at worst, disapproving: whenever she did something wrong, misbehaved, or just plain did not entirely meet his (usually ridiculously high) expectations, he would look at her like that. She hated it: sometimes she would have preferred it if he had yelled at her.

Silence fell into the cave as her master and adoptive father looked around, observing the destruction that had been wreaked. There was still the wind and the waterfall, but they might as well have not been there, so little did they make to lessen the tension in the air. It lasted for nearly half a minute, after which it was finally broken, not by either of them, but rather by one of the dragon's hands, which chose this as the opportune moment to break off as well and land into the pool with a splash that echoed across the grotto with far more presence than it had any right to have.

"A-...", she swallowed, "apologies, master!" She turned around to face him and made a hasty bow. "I got... carried away a little."

He raised an eyebrow, this being the last thing she saw of him before her gaze got firmly affixed to the floor, as if the little pebbles and the rippling water had suddenly become something very interesting. She did not see him anymore, but she did hear two small red panda feet, and the thud of the long wooden staff, as he approached her, finally stopping right in front of her, and even now she did not look up.

"How did this happen?", Shifu finally asked. He did sound disappointed and also rather incredulous, but strangely concerned as well.

"I...", Tigress swallowed, stammering for a response.

"You were the last person I would have expected this from... except possibly Viper," he added barely audibly. "How did this happen?", he repeated.

"I was... training," she managed after some deliberate attempt. He nodded, and she carried on. "After hours of fruitless attempt, I finally managed to catch a drop of water..."

"Did it break?", he interrupted.

"Uh... yes... yes, it did. But that's not what made me lose my patience. What caused that was... that I could not feel it to begin with. Because of..."

"I always objected of the ironwood."

"I just wanted to be strong." She raised her voice a little, lifting her eyes to look directly at him. "You never... you did not even commend me, not once, no matter how well I did. I thought I was..."

"I know." She very much did not feel his hand on her shoulder, pulling her down on his level with impressive strength, and really would have wished to feel him as he embraced her, and as she did so in return. "And I am sorry."

They did not hug very often. Certainly not after she had done anything she would have understood as wrong in his eyes. And most definitely never this long. When it was finally broken, though, Shifu sighed, looking once more a little bit less concerned, and more disappointed. "You will still need to fix all this, of course."

"Of course," she smiled.

"So... what got you into coming here in the first place?"

She got up, and hesitated. "I was... in emotional turmoil?"

"Great pain?"

"Confusion, rather. But... I still thought that a little exercise could have gotten me through it."

"It might have," he nodded in agreement, "if you had gotten it right, at least, to which I think you are still a little young." He frowned. "Po notwithstanding." Then looked up at her again. "What are you confused about?"

"Er..." This time the hesitation was longer, and deeper. Her eyes darted around the cave, as if looking for a way out, her fangs biting her lower lip, and in general having her look like a kitten half her age. "I'd... rather not..."

"Daughter," he interrupted, and Tigress's ears immediately perked up, her eyes back to him, giving him full attention. It was a rare moment indeed when he would call her that. "I made for a horrible father, and for that I apologise. I cannot bring back the days when you were but a cub, to try and direct you better: the best I can do is to be a good parent to you now. I decided to do so after the Dragon Warrior defeated Tai Lung, and here we are: you are feeling confused and in a need of an assistance, and I will not leave you alone as I would have long ago." He put his hand back on her shoulder and looked at her firmly, compassionately, the way he had not looked at her for a long time...

"Whatever it is that is concerning you, you can tell me. I can promise you that I will do all I can to help you, and you probably could not surprise me with it anyway. Please. Just let me be a father to you, like the one I never was to you when I should have before."

This did the trick, mostly. There was a warming of heart somewhere within her that was not there before, purging away just enough of the shame and embarrassment for her to speak her mind... at least after another half a minute of hesitation and gathering up courage. But finally she spoke, very slowly.

"It's... It's about Po..." She managed a grin that did not reach her eyes, but it died within seconds as she turned to look away from him. She did not see it, but she heard the wooden clatter as Oogway's old staff very resoundedly hit the ground. That was not a good sign.

"What?", Shifu exclaimed, then cursed in his mind. He had not intended that to come out quite as rough as it did, but then again, he was relatively sure he had just had a stroke, at the very least, so it was a little bit difficult to regulate his voice in this particular instance. How could he regulate his voice if he could barely think? How could he think if his own daughter (adopted or otherwise) had just said the very last thing any respectful father would want to hear from their sweet flower, particularly when he had just decided to get more involved with her life?

"Could not surprise you, was it...?", she asked bitterly.

He tried to swallow the prejudice, the temptation to lock her in a tower and keep her there forever, and so he began carefully, trying his best to keep the alarm away from his voice: "All right... so... what exactly do you see in him?"

He was expecting one or two shallow reasons, something about him making her laugh (or coming close), but instead he got a glance that seemed to ask, silently, whether he was completely out of his mind, which he took as a fairly bad sign. The glance was all he got for some time, until she found her voice again: perhaps it was difficult for her to praise someone that was her friend but from whom she wished more? He wouldn't know: he had never been foolishly infatuated with somebody. He had never been a girl either, for that matter.

Granted, Shifu thought nothing wrong of Po - not anymore, anyway. The panda had surprised him with his tenacity and learning, being one of the best students he had ever had and bringing him peace that had not been with him for two decades. He could have thought of him as a good friend, even a son in his own right. But the day he would see him date his adopted daughter was the day he would be lying cold in his grave (from which, on further reflection, he could not really see anything much at all). He was pretty sure these were perfectly normal thoughts from any concerned parent.

Meanwhile, Tigress had managed to gather her voice and was prepared to answer. "Why do I like Po? Well... he's... fun to be around...?", she began carefully.

Shifu sighed in relief. He could work with this, and so he opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off as she continued: "He's friendly... kind, caring, cute in his own way... stubborn, determined... pretty funny a lot of times, and really, really sweet when he wants to..."

"All right, thank you," he finally interrupted, "I think I get it..." The problem was, she would not stop: he was not even sure she heard him. "A great fighter, always wanting to improve himself for improvement's sake, really talented, self-conscious, clever, wise, selfless, brave, forgiving - he forgave the man that killed his parents! - pure, incorruptible, great with children, a wonderful chef - wasn't it Oogway that said you should choose your life partner over their cooking instead of good looks, because you will be hungry more often than you will be-"

"Don't," he finally managed, holding his hand and trying his very best to not hear what she was saying right now. He had just barely avoided the mental image, and reall- oh no there it is, he is imagining it, no, why was he cursed with such a plague?

She was still continuing, although at this point it sounded like she was finishing: "And have you even seen his belly? It is so big and soft and fuzzy and cuddly and..." For much of her rant, she had had a happy, dreamy face, but now it gradually faded away and was replaced by sadness. "...Sometimes I just want to put my head against it, and fall to sleep, and... forget about what kind of a huge mess my own life is..."

And to that thought she stopped. She was looking at nowhere in particular, eyelids half-shut, her face all in all the very image of misery. There was not much he could say at that point, although he did manage to make something of a half-argument to that last one: "But you cannot even feel him."

"I can!", she exclaimed, looking straight at him again, then at her own hands. "...Somehow. I _can_ feel him. I have been wondering about that... but back when he held my hand at the Gongmen City harbor, before pushing me out of the way of the ships... I felt it. And then when I pulled him out of the water, and he hugged me, I felt that too. And earlier today, we... did end up in contact again..." She scratched her nose and looked embarrassed. "...Well, I felt that too. But I am not supposed to feel anything at all, and yet..."

Shifu admitted that this was an odd thing, something that piqued his curiousity as well. "Perhaps it was because he has achieved inner peace?", he mused. "He knows the flow of the universe, so he can penetrate your barriers and feel you with every inch of-" He stopped in his tracks, realizing exactly what he was saying.

She had not noticed, though, or at least so it appeared. She merely made a counterargument: "But I could not feel your hug, as much as I liked. Even though you have also achieved peace."

"...Oh." He realized the point she was making, and thought about it a little further, before responding: "Well, then, I have no fucking clue." He tossed his hands to his sides to signify he's done here, turned around, and picked up Oogway's staff. He managed approximitely five limping steps before her heavy sigh stopped him. He grumbled something unintelligible, then turned around again.

"Are you absolutely sure you like him?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

He rubbed his forehead. This still was not a thought he was very comfortable with: Po was about the last male being he would trust his daughter's life for - with the possible exception of Monkey. "You will have to let me think about it," he told her: it was the best he could give, really.

"How long?" Tigress looked concerned, almost expectant. Shifu just let his eyes wander across the cave, the broken statue, and other damage that had been done.

"How about... until you have repaired the grotto?"

"But...", she stammered, following his eyes to look at the dragon head and hand, the latter of which had sunk in a surprisingly deep part of the otherwise very shallow pool. "That could take weeks!"

"Tigress, you understand of course that this will be for the very best of you and the entire rest of your life," he told her sternly. "I cannot make a decision of this magnitude without giving it a deep thought first." He gave her a smile that he would have liked to be a caring one, but that just might have carried a tad of smugness behind it that she hopefully did not notice. "You may come and talk to me about it when you are finished."

And with that, he departed the Grotto, leaving behind a rather confused adopted daughter. He thought that had gone sort of well: he had avoided crushing her spirits entirely, acted as a responsible and loving surrogate father, _without_ outright allowing her to date the panda, and even giving him a couple weeks extra time to come up with something clever.

Perhaps he could still save everything.

* * *

><p>Almost immediately after closing hour, Mr. Ping left his restaurant and took off to the Jade Palace for a certain special task he had in mind. Being at his thoughts and not really watching where he was going, he very nearly crashed straight upon the old and equally pensive red panda, which would have resulted in both of them collapsing down the stairs if not for one half's kung fu reflexes and a really long staff.<p>

Master Shifu was also the first to recover from the surprise. "Mister Ping! I am happy to see you here: I was just heading down to meet you. I believe we have something urgent to discuss."

"Oh? Ah, yes!" For someone that had not bothered to learn any kung fu whatsoever (apart from that one move, which everyone was still trying to forget), the goose was remarkably fast in hiding the kitchen knife and the ladle he was carrying behind his back. "Yes... discuss. That is why I was here for, as well!" He nodded with an almost reassuring smile and a strained laugh. "So, what did you wish to talk about?"

The red panda, for his part, chose to ignore the obvious implications for violence, very possibly directed at one of his wards (it being not enough to even harm her notwithstanding), in favour of carrying on the more urgent talk and perhaps get to some sort of an agreement. "Of our progeny acting inappropriate toward one another. Suppose it might be possible you were here to talk about the exact same matter?"

"A-ha!" The kitchen knife came back out as Ping pointed it accusingly at Shifu. "I knew it! Your temptress of a daughter has been trying to apply his wicked feminine viles at my son, to lure him further away from me, and the life of security and noodles! ...No offense," he added sheepishly.

"None taken." Shifu rolled his eyes. "So, as I suspected, this is mutual, both in how they feel about each other and how _we_ feel about it." He sighed deep, as did Ping. "...What can we do about this? It is going to be a disaster."

"Perhaps we could just tell them not to?", the other suggested. "Surely they would listen to their parents!"

"No." The old master just shook his head. "If I know her half as well as I think I do, she would just run away with him somewhere else to continue on, and then we would not only lose in this matter, but we would lose them entirely and perhaps never see them again! It is an unacceptable risk."

"But... what else is there we could do?" Ping looked somewhat dejected now. "I think Po really likes her, at least at this point. We need to put a stop to it now lest it keeps going and turns into something we would really not approve of."

"I know! But I am not sure there is anything that..." He stopped. "...Unless..." Shifu looked around in a conspiratorial manner, then pulled Ping a little closer and lowered his voice. "I may have a plan. It is going to be drastic, possibly even suicidal, but if it pulls through..."

"What is it?" Ping checked his surroundings as well, just to make sure, then moved on closer to Shifu to hear him out.

And it was on that night that the villainous, hammy laughter of two middle-aged men echoed down to the village and caused great worry to the people living down there.

* * *

><p>And along came the wedding. In spite of all their efforts, all their plans and stratagems, they had failed. They were unsuccessful in stopping this farce, three months ago or any time after that, and now all they could do was to watch in defeat as the entire Valley of Peace celebrated the couple both of them thought to be the last they ever wanted to witness.<p>

Of course, they had told the others about it. They had told them that this is the pure epitome of evil and wrongness and must be stopped at all costs. And what was the answer? "You cannot stop true love! It would only bring you bad fortune if you tried, and made everyone unhappy." This was said in a somewhat respectful manner, of course, considering who they were speaking to, but the message was the same. Ha, as if this was about _love!_ Shows how little they knew: they never believed them, not even now. They were all alone.

Silence befell the courtyard as the couple performed the traditional rites, the respects were paid for the ancestors and the Jade Emperor, and more than one burst into tears when they were finally announced married. The only opposers of this union gagged in their minds, only visible by the other. This was disgusting, they thought, and yet they were forced to watch it all, watch as their very lives unraveled in front of them.

"Well, then!", an authoritative-looking pig announed solemnly to the entire crowd. "I hereby pronounce you as husband and..." He hesitated slightly. "...Husband. You may now kiss."

The crowd (minus two) cheered wildly, and the band began to play jubilant wedding music, as Mr. Ping threw Shifu Ping off his feet and kissed him passionately in front of everybody. He proceeded to pick him up and carry him off towards the stairs, through the throngs of celebrating people, and right next to the newly-realised step-brother and -sister, who glared at them even through their strained smiles and fake applauds. The smiles were responded in a somewhat scathing and mocking manner, before the newlyweds headed off towards the wagon waiting downstairs, and to their honeymoon.

Po and Tigress glanced at each other somewhat awkwardly, then at the wagon now leaving. Tigress was the first to speak: "So..."

"...Yeah," Po rubbed the back of his head and shifted on his feet. "That was weird."

"It truly was... brother."

"Sister."

As the crowd dispersed, and the siblings went on their separate ways, Po wondered if Viper was still free.


	2. Bonus Chapter

_The old folk tell of an ancient tale in China, of the era of myths, when a man and a woman wished to be married. But they were also a brother and sister, and as such they felt ashamed and did not know what to do. And so they went up to the great mountains and prayed for guidance from the heavens..._

* * *

><p>Two days after the wedding, a strange weather phenomenon was reported in the Valley of Peace. Fog, even the thick kind, was not unheard of down there among the citizens, a common enough of an occurrence, but this particular one seemed something very different indeed. For one thing, it came from absolutely nowhere: the night had been clear and fine, the sky cloudless and the stars perfectly visible, only to be all consumed by mist not a minute later. For another, it was incredibly deep and thick: its density was such that a man could walk on the street and hit his head against a wall almost without noticing. The visibility was so poor that were one to extend his hand fully in front of him, he would not see to the end of it.<p>

Some people thought it a curse, others preached of ill omen. Very few indeed thought it to be a good thing or a blessing, and fewer still dared to suggest a natural explanation, that there was nothing wrong or magical in this. Virtually everybody closed their shops and other establishment and locked themselves firmly indoors until the fog went away. Most children obeyed their parents and did so as well, though a few most rambunctious ones dared to go outside nonetheless, playing in the mist. They would tell stories of monsters residing in the fog and eating unaware children who went too far away from their parents, but nothing such was ever reported and no child or adult was deemed missing afterwards.

The Jade Palace was also engulfed by the everhungry haze, equally thick and allowing none to see through it. Even the vast mountaintops atop the Palace were not spared, and the farms at the edges of the Valley likewise put under. Later it would be heard that everything and everyone in a radius of fifty miles was completely surrounded by the strange clouds.

And there atop the Palace, at the Sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom, unseen by all, unheard by all but one other person, a cautious male voice uttered:

"So... you guys think it's okay, then?"


End file.
